THE
ALIEN FACTOR (1977)Director: Don Dohler
Retromedia Entertainment
THE
ALIEN FACTOR (1977)In the late 1970s, I eagerly anticipated the release of THE ALIEN FACTOR, having read about it in Famous Monsters magazine. I scanned the theater listings in the newspapers for at a few months so I would not miss it. It never showed up at the theaters, at least in Tulsa, but it did show up on television, less than a year later. Ignore the inaccurate reporting of those who say this film was "shelved for years" before being a direct to TV/Video release. This little gem has been stupefying the masses since at least 1979.
This film is entertaining in an
EQUINOX kind of way. Low budget but high ambition.
Alien creatures being transported for research on another planet crashes near
a small Pennsylvania town. Three aliens escape, and go about slaughtering the
drunken, slow moving citizens to a pulsating Space Invaders-esqe (bawmp BAWMP
bawmp BAWMP) soundtrack. Another alien appears on the scene and dons a lounge
lizard disguise and the name Zachary to track down and kill the alien pests.
Zachary always arrives just in 
time
to stop the marauding invaders, with the help of the town's more "sober"
citizens.
Interesting to note: all of the victims are male! A first in a normally misogynist genre.
The alien designs are fair to
good, the best being the Zagatile, which must stand at least seven feet tall.
It reminded me of the yeti-like alien from INVASION OF THE ANIMAL PEOPLE. With
its simian face, mandibles and fur covered body, its an original and well executed
concept. The first alien to meet its demise, the Inferbryce, is a cockroach
looking creature that is defeated using sound waves to "crack its shell."
Unfortunately, the film stock and lighting are 
poor,
so you really cannot make out many details of this alien. The Leemoid, the final
alien is kept invisible until the end. Its scenes are fair to poor, as you can
clearly see the table the model is on a couple of times when it is superimposed
over the live action scenes. Every review I have read on this film always forgets
the other two aliens, the pilot of the crashed space ship and Zachary's true
form. The pilot looks like a Morlock from THE TIME MACHINE in a jumpsuit. Zachary
in alien form, looks like a combination of a mummy and the swamp thing, with
two LED eyes and bed hair. The scariest thing about THE ALIEN FACTOR is the
road band featured in the middle of the movie. Their talent challenged wailing
in the town tavern epitomizes why I'm glad the 70s are over.
This
DVD has found its way to my favorites list very quickly. The quality of the
print used is probably the best source available, and is fair to good. Some
interior scenes in the film itself were not very well lit, and the DVD does
not make up for this much. The incredible thing about this DVD is the "cutting
room floor" footage of the Leemoid (the stop motion animated alien) that
the producers decided to scrap and replace with a whole new creature. Funny,
I thought the original Leemoid was better executed than the second one. But
the second Leemoid is a better design. There is also a blooper reel and some
still slide shows of behind the scenes and the "Ge
orge
Stover" gallery(?). The audio is very good, but there is still some crackle
in the background.
I am looking forward to buying more Retromedia releases. The function screens are attractive and easy to navigate. You can tell when a company has some sort of affection for the source material, and it shows in this release. You get a lot more in this DVD in the way of extras than you would find in an MGM release. The film itself is presented in full-screen.
This
release has the "Bikini Drive-in" intro which could upset parents
(and some wives), as it contains brief nudity and Fred Olen Ray holding a liquor
flask and suggesting that you should be "half in the bag" to watch
this film. You can however bypass the intro in the scene selection screen. THE
ALIEN FACTOR is for the most part kid safe. There are some inept gore scenes
(monster claws smearing blood on victims) and numerous victims who had too much
to drink, but nothing even approaching what kids could see on "The X Files."
I highly recommend this feature rich release of THE ALIEN FACTOR to anyone who
has flexible expectations for their sci-fi/horror entertainment dollar.
(Mark
Suggs)